F1 2013 - Review

Posted: 10/08/13

Coming across the line a bit later than past games, F1 2013 brings the expected yearly updates while promising an expansive future for the series by tapping into the sport's history. Players have been waiting for a chance to drive these classic machines and iconic courses, but are these additions enough to keep it from feeling like you're just spinning your wheels?

No matter how you plan to progress in F1 2013, you'll begin with the Young Driver Test, running you through the basics and specifics of driving a Formula One machine. While such principles are nothing new for fans, proving your skills and earning gold medals will let you unlock contract offers from better teams, giving a more solid start to your career.

The career mode itself is fairly straightforward, simulating all 19 races from the 2013 season with each course potentially taking hours to master. Full races can last 50 to 70 laps and even at the minimum 25% race length, you'll average 12 to 15 laps per event, not counting practice and qualifying sessions. It's a considerable commitment, but these lengthy terms aren't as intimidating as in the past since mid-session saves now let you quit right in the middle of a race and return where you left off.

Plus, like last year's game, there are plenty of alternative options to give you a quick stint behind the wheel. Season challenge provides a more compact career spanning just ten 5-lap races, hopping from team to team with new contracts offered practically every other race. Time attack simply lets you take to the track to best bronze, silver, and gold benchmarks, although it's a bit odd that there aren't ghosts to compete with on every course. Meanwhile, Scenario mode replaces last year's Champions mode, giving you 20 different challenges such as recovering after blowing a tire or getting a 10-second lead on a rival to overcome a penalty.

These alternate modes will give you a taste of the sport, but much of what F1 is all about can only be seen over the long haul. R&D objectives needed to improve your car's performance only become available if you partake in practice days. There's a greater sense of satisfaction from rising through the ranks of all three qualifying sessions, and changes in the weather that necessitate last-minute adjustments to tire strategy only really apply on longer race settings.

It takes intense mental focus to maintain the precision necessary to stay on pace. Paired with the amount of time out on track, it can leave you with a satisfied sense of exhaustion. While you want to push your car's performance, you also have to manage the life of your tires -- if you're too hard on them, you can definitely find yourself slipping and sliding towards the end of a stint. Since maintaining the new tire compounds has become such an important issue in real life, the game could certainly do with a bit more feedback from your engineering crew, but one thing that has improved is communication during changing weather conditions. A heads up from your team will ensure you don't get stuck riding slicks too long in the rain.

One thing we've never experienced outside of the scripted scenario mode is a full blowout. Hazards caused by AI drivers are rare, and even on circuits where incidents are practically guaranteed in real life, we haven't once seen a safety car called out in F1 2013. Of course it's nice that the AI is competent, but the sense of danger you get from real F1 definitely feels muted here.

The biggest new addition to this year's Formula 1 game is the historical content from the 1980s and 90s, including cars, circuits, and likenesses of drivers like Nigel Mansell and Mario Andretti. The 80s cars certainly feel different from their modern counterparts, trading the boosting effects of devices like KERS [pronounce "curz"] and DRS [pronounce letters] for a more pure sense of racing. Tires also take a bit longer to warm up, making the cars a bit more slippery on short runs. And by the way, if you don't remember the 80s looking quite so yellow, you can just turn that filter off.

While it's an exciting direction for the future of F1 games, the classic content is barely a speed bump in this year's package. The standard game only includes five cars and two tracks from the 1980s. With such a limited amount of content, there's no room for a career-style experience, and there are only three unique challenge scenarios here. The worst part is that the accompanying set of 90s content is only available if you buy the Classic Edition for $15 more or purchase it separately as DLC, essentially cutting the amount of added historical content in half for most players.

Multiplayer options remain largely the same, allowing you to drop into several quick play modes, partake in a co-op championship with a friend or create your own custom races. Online is where the historical content really shines as you go head to head against other players, racing classic cars on modern tracks or vice-versa.

While F1 2013 is certainly improved over 2012, like the subtle new lighting effects, most of those changes don't make for substantial additions. The move to include features from past eras is a promising step for the future of the series, but carving out half of that content as DLC leaves the remainder as a briefly entertaining pit stop before moving on to business as usual.

Publishers/DevelopersIf you have questions about the site or a piece of media that you would like included on gametrailers.com, we would love to hear from you. Send us an email at: trailers@gametrailers.com

GamersAny issues with the site? Are there broken links? Is there a trailer you are looking for that you can't find? Do you want to heap praise upon us? Send us an email at: webmaster@gametrailers.com